


Aftershock

by sonatine



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Carterson, Cartson, F/M, Jack and Peggy's developing relationship, Mild depictions of alcoholism/PTSD, everyone was in the war, leaning on each other/support, now finding their footing back home, wash rinse repeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3422018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonatine/pseuds/sonatine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carter and Thompson from Monday to Sunday</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftershock

It is 1946 and a Monday and only a bit of bourbon remains at the bottom of his glass. He finishes it off, showers, and falls into a dead sleep. _Maybe this time_. He wakes, as usual, at the crack of the gunshot. He sits up and swings his legs over the bed, so that his feet are resting on the floor and his face is resting in his hands. He pours a scotch this time (three-quarters? four-fifths? The precise alchemy is tricky) and buries his head back in the pillow. Wash, rinse, repeat.

* * *

 

It is 1948 and a Tuesday and this time he wakes up when Peggy cries out in her sleep. He rolls over and gently shakes her awake. Her eyes open, wide and startled, and he waits patiently for them to focus back into the present. Her confusion wanes and she reaches up to touch his face before settling back into the covers, turning tight into his embrace. He holds her close and her steady breathing calms him. There is a twist of gratefulness and tenderness and something stronger in his stomach, and he pulls her closer to remind himself that she’s real. In another circumstance it might bother him if his girl cried out another man’s name in her sleep, but he understands: if he’d known all the names of all those he’d seen die, he’d be calling them out too. He synchronizes his breathing with her own respiratory rhythm. Wash, rinse, repeat.

* * *

 

It is 1968 and a Wednesday and he is waiting at a café in Washington, D.C. He is sitting outdoors, which was a massive tactical error—the humidity here is unbelievable—and slowly sipping on a whiskey. He sees her walking on the opposite side of the street. He watches her recognize the name of the restaurant, cross the street, and search amongst the other outside patrons. She spots him and breaks into a grin. He stands to meet her and she tackles him into a bear hug.

“That was some impressive detective work,” she says, settling into the seat opposite. “How did you even know I was in D.C.?”

“Called your office,” he says. “They said you were out of town for a meeting. It was just fun and games from there.”

“I suppose you have to keep your skills sharp somehow, private sector,” she says, turning to the waitress who has appeared by the table. “Just a coffee, please.”

“What’s your rush?” he teases. “The S.S.R. won’t fall apart in the fifteen minutes that you’re gone, or haven’t you learned to delegate yet?”

“It’s S.H.I.E.L.D. now, as you well know, and does your wife know you’re drinking? I thought your doctor said your liver was crying uncle.”

“Ah, he’s an alarmist,” Jack says, but sets his glass down all the same. “You look good.”

Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “So do you. The beard suits you. Surprisingly.”

“Tools of the trade. I can’t be a PI without it.”

There is a dull roar from the park behind them. Peggy half-turns. “Another protest, I imagine?”

“Yeah.”

It is a different kind of war this time. The marines tried to recruit him back, but he skirted out. Then the draft-dodgers tried to idolize him, but he skirted away again. He used to stop by the VA hospital once a week to talk with recovering patients, but—

“I’m surprised they didn’t try to snatch you up immediately,” she says lightly.

“Oh, they tried.”

“Thompson? _Jack_ Thompson?”

They look up in tandem. It is an old friend from the war, decorated and promoted, and he is happy to see Jack, they shake hands and slap backs and catch up and their conversation turns to, what else?, the new war, and then they are in dangerous waters.

“I just wouldn’t have expected you, of all people, to act the coward,” his old friend sneers, and Peggy has jumped to her feet. Jack stands and lays a hand on her arm. “Steady on,” he says.

“Stay out of this,” his old friend says to Peggy, purple in the face with patriotism and self-righteous pride. “Not that I’d expect _you_ to understand,” he adds, and no one is under any illusions as to which gender the _you_ refers, and now it is Peggy’s turn to physically restrain Jack from causing his old jackass friend bodily harm.

* * *

 

It is 1976 and a Thursday and he wakes up to the phone ringing. He pulls the receiver to his ear and mumbles some sort of greeting.

“Jack?” Peggy says. “Are you there?”

He wakes up more fully. “Yeah. I’m here.” He disentangles himself from his wife’s spray of limbs and goes to living room. He pours himself a bourbon and picks up the phone by his armchair. “How are the kids?”

“Fine,” she says. Her breaths are shallow. Still coming off a nightmare. “Tell me about your week.”

He relates to her the recent happenings: his daughter’s acceptance into Princeton, his son’s recent basketball game, the fender-bender he got into last month, the current case he’s working. His wife appears in the doorway, questioning, then she sees him on the phone. He smiles at her and mouths _go back to sleep_. She nods and disappears back into the bedroom. He’d asked Peggy about it once, _What does your husband think about these calls of ours?_ and she paused and laughed and said he wasn’t overjoyed, but he understood. Her husband had been in the foreign press in Europe—close enough to the action, but not the same. Like his wife, who had worked in factories here in the States during the war. She understood and she sympathized. But. Wash, rinse, repeat.

As distance grew between the present and the war of their youth, their calls had dwindled: from every night to every week to every couple weeks to every couple months. Now they only occurred maybe twice a year. Jack waits until her breathing evens out again and says goodnight, good luck on the presentation tomorrow, did you see last week’s episode of _Columbo_? and goodnight again. He leaves the bourbon half-finished on the table and returns to bed.

* * *

 It is 1951 and a Friday and he has smashed his empty glass against the wall. He misses her and he hates that he misses her but is relieved she is gone but hates that she is. He wakes up fully dressed and on top of the covers of his bed, instead of on the living room floor. Someone has placed him here. He turns onto his side. Lying next to him, also fully dressed and on top of the covers, is Peggy. She is already awake and watching him with a serious expression.

“What are you doing here?” His voice cracks with sleep.

“You called me last night. You don’t remember?”

He shakes his head. She reaches out and brushes his hair out of his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Rough. You?”

“Not much better.”

 He sits up and out of reflex reaches for a glass on the nightstand. His hand closes over thin air. “I should go,” she says, and he lets her.

* * *

 

It is 1947 and a Saturday and he is undressing Peggy for the first time. He brushes his fingers over the bullet wounds on her shoulder, as much a part of her as the red lipstick that is now smeared across his neck, and she moves his dog tags aside as she tugs his undershirt over his head and she looks so fierce and determined and he thinks that his heart might explode—

* * *

 

It is 1949 and a Sunday and he drains the remaining one-fifth of bourbon. He showers and falls into his pillow. He wakes to the anti-artillery spraying a curtain of dirt and blood before him and sits up in bed. “Steady on,” Peggy says, still half asleep, and pulls him back down beside her. She wraps her legs around him and he buries his face in the crook of her neck.


End file.
